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Friday, May 25, 2012

I love Joe Biden. I mean it. I LOVE Joe Biden

At the TAPS National
Military Survivor Seminar and Good Grief Camp in Arlington, Virginia, Joe Biden stood in front of a room full of military families who had lost loved ones in the service of our country. He stood with his wife, Jill, by his side and spoke from the heart in a voice thick with emotion, talking about his own losses--the deaths of his first wife and 18-month-old daughter in a horrific auto accident when he was but 29 years old and a new senator-elect--but he wasn't looking to one-up that group by telling his own sad story; nor was he asking for pity.

(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

He was one of them and he knew how they felt. At that moment, he dropped the role of Vice President and became just one among many survivor group participants. He understood how the sudden death of someone you love can send you over the edge, thinking only of ways to relieve the raging, relentless gut pain you feel every time the finality hits:

"It was the first time in my career, in my life, I realized someone
could go out -- and I probably shouldn't say this with the press here,
but no, but it's more important, you're more important. For the first
time in my life, I understood how someone could consciously decide to
commit suicide. Not
because they were deranged, not because they were nuts; because they had
been to the top of the mountain, and they just knew in their heart they
would never get there again."

He gave the talk of his life (although he may not know it yet), and out of it came another remarkable confession. He said when his son Beau finished his tour of duty in the Middle East, he couldn't help but feel guilty. His son, his beloved son--one of two sons who miraculously survived that horrible accident so many years before--had come home whole when so many other sons and husbands hadn't. Guilt is not an uncommon feeling among families whose loved ones have survived in places where others have lost their lives, but here was the vice president of the United States, without guile or lofty sense of privilege, confessing feelings rarely spoken out loud by anybody. (Rachel Maddow played an extended clip of his speech. You can watch it here.)

In his next speech, reported to be against Mitt Romney, it'll be political business as usual. In the coming days there will be repeats of those moments when his struggle for the right words will fit into the goofy category--fine fodder for the foaming media lightweights. But he proved his mettle today, in a way that few politicians ever do.

Joe Biden is a good man. He may be one of our best when it comes to showing us how one can be a career politician and a caring, feeling human being at the same time. I want him to be the vice president for the next four years, and if he wants the presidency after that, I'll work my heart out for him.

Joe 'Senator MBNA' Biden is personally responsible for a lot of the misery we're going through today.

Have you forgotten his role in the disastrous bankruptcy bill? Yeah, that legislation of which Obama said at the Democratic National Convention the first time around "now is the time to change our bankruptcy laws..." (which of course he didn't mean because this legislation was a Joe Biden special).__http://www.nndb.com/people/023/000027939/Over his long career in the Senate, Biden's biggest financial supporter was the credit card company MBNA, until it was swallowed by Bank of America. His son, Hunter Biden, was hired as a management trainee at MBNA straight out of law school, and was quickly promoted to executive vice president.

Yes there were some other sneaky dems supporting the credit card industry

http://www.salon.com/2005/03/10/bankrupt/They even rejected an amendment that would have put a 30 percent ceiling on the interest rates credit card companies can charge. Thirty percent — that’s more than Paulie Walnuts charges. But 74 U.S. senators — including John Kerry, Harry Reid, Barack Obama and Dick Durbin — clearly thought that wasn’t high enough. ___But it was Biden who led the way to the trough.

By the way, I watched all 3 days of the Anita Hill hearings and Joe Biden was a nasty, sneering, leering, arrogant piece of work who did not but talk down to that woman and make her look like she was the one who asked HER to testify.

I did 3 years in the military 65-68, never left the States and never handled a military weapon after Basic. I know I served my country and did what i was supposed to do but still, even today, feel a tinge of guilt that I was not in Vietnam so I know what Joe and his sons feel.

I guess because Palin was the Celebrity du Jour and he was just Joe? But in the end he showed 'em! There were many who thought Obama was crazy for choosing Biden, but I guess he knew what he was doing. He needed a down-home guy to counter his Harvard image.

damn...heartfelt words for my Joey...I LOVE HIM TOO! Unfortunately, his naysayers will continue to make fun of his truthfilled, honest ways...because they can not come anywhere near his honor, courage, or integrity...so, instead, he's denigrated and dismissed.

ooooooooh, you're both going to freak when you find he's been a passenger IN MY CAR when i picked him up at the airport for a dismal showing of support in an all-white, rednecked county that i'd paper'd thoroughly in preparation for his arrival! only the most diehard dems showed up...but he was the most gracious and lovely man i could ever have imagined! i apologized profusely for the paltry showing. he wasn't angry or hurt...he was just honorable! whatta' guy! and then, at the J/J dinner in des moines, he recognized me on the rope line, "well, if YOU'RE HERE, this is an event!" and as a VP, he allowed me to give him the BIGGEST hug!!! i told him he was thin, i was concerned, he said, "this is what 3 million miles'll do to your body!"...he's a real man. REAL.MAN.

and, i was allowed to meet and speak with jill, who gave me the strangest look while she was speaking...evidently they have footage from prior events to view and who to look for? it was like she knew me. i handed her mom's book. her secret service knew who mom was too...and allowed me access to jill...so cool...so nice...so tiny!!! she's a force to be reckoned with. trust me. she knows she shares her love for joe with all of us.

Sarah, thanks so much for sharing your story. Yes, I'm damned jealous that you got to meet both Joe and Jill, and then got to HUG him, too! But you confirmed what I thought about him for years now. He's a good, good man and he deserves to be president.

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From Political Loud Mouth

"If by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties - someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal', then I'm proud to say I'm a Liberal."

-John Kennedy

Any Other Questions??

"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things...every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." -- Written by Lawrence O'Donnell and spoken by Jimmy Smits as Matt Santos on The West Wing

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